If you ever wanted to limit CPU usage of some applications so that other applications can run faster or even waste some CPU cycles running the idle loop instead, then keep reading. If you always try to achieve maximum possible performance for all of your applications, then this feature is probably not for you, and you should pay a visit to the Performance Community on OpenSolaris :-)

Beta preview of upcoming Solaris feature called CPU caps was released today under brand new OpenSolaris Resource Management project web page. CPU caps can be set independently on projects and zones using two new resource controls. The unit used for these resource controls is a percentage of a single CPU. Processes can still migrate between different CPUs, but their overall CPU usage will be limited. If you want more details, go to the project web page.

I'm really excited about finally getting it released externally and hoping to get your feedback on how it does (or maybe it does not for some reason) fit your specific needs on cpu-caps-beta@sun.com. It would be really interesting if somebody tried this on a SunRay server (but please, do NOT run this in production yet!) and tell me how it behaves there and whether it can be used to keep bad behaving applications (or users) under control.